The Satanist

by Dennis Wheatley

  'What would happen if I failed in that?'

  'You would haf lost your chance to become initiate. Most regrettable; for whatever you may feel yourself, I know you to be ready for advancement. But there ees no reason why you should fail. The task provided ees always suitable for the neophyte to weech it ees given.'

  Now that he had made it clear to her beyond all question that she must still pass through two preliminary stages before having finally to commit herself, she felt very differently about the matter from the way she had on getting home from her visit to the Temple the previous Saturday night. The thought of the long empty days and lonely evenings that lay ahead of her played their part, and once more there rose in her the urge to try to find out about Teddy.

  'Very well, then,' she said impulsively. 'To be honest, I was a bit scared and meant to back out. But I don't mind going through this short ceremony if I am to be given plenty of time to get used to the thought of facing the big one. So I'll meet you as we arranged on Saturday.'

  'Good; very good,' said Mr. Ratnadatta.

  9. A fiendish plot

  The following morning, while Mary was disconsolately making a late breakfast of the Westphalian ham she had bought as a first dish for the supper at which she had planned to entertain Barney, Colonel Verney was already in his office hard at work sorting the papers in his 'In' tray. On the previous Monday he had had to attend a N.A.T.O. conference in Naples; so he had flown down to Nice on Friday night, in order to spend the weekend with his wife, gone on to Naples and got back only the night before. He had found Molly in good form and had thoroughly enjoyed relaxing among the orange trees and oleanders in the garden of their villa. Such breaks he knew to be a sound insurance against strain from overwork but, all the same, they had to be paid for on his return by an accumulation of matters requiring his attention.

  Putting the longer documents aside he dealt first with letters needing a prompt answer; then, having sent his secretary off to type them, he got down to an hour's reading of reports. Among them there was one from Squadron-Leader Forsby. In a brief letter he said only that Otto Khune's behaviour during the past week had continued much as before and as yet gave no grounds for suspicion that he was communicating with any questionable person. But sometime during the week he had completed the account of his past, and a copy of it, which had been taken after a further search of his quarters, carried out when he was absent from the Station on Sunday, was enclosed. Spreading out the typescript, Verney read:

  It was in May 1950 that, after an interval of eight years, I again saw my brother Lothar. I was at the time living with my wife Dinah at Farnborough, and engaged, as an official of the Ministry of Supply, in tabulating the results of new fuels then being tested at the Experimental Aircraft Establishment there.

  We occupied a pleasant little house on the outskirts of the town, had made a number of friends in the neighbourhood, and our life was a very happy one until, early in May, I began to be plagued by constant thoughts of Lothar.

  For a long time past, thoughts of him had come to me only infrequently. I was aware, although it had never been confirmed as a fact by a communication from him or any other source, that he was in the U.S.S.R., and now content to carry on his scientific work there under his Russian masters in one of their research establishments. It distressed me that he should be working for the Communists, but there was nothing I could do about it, and I had come to accept it that, as our paths in life had diverged so widely, it was unlikely that we should ever meet again.

  Yet, having once more started to think about him, try as I would I could not get him out of my mind. In fact, I became the victim of a mental disturbance of the same nature as that I have suffered recently. I found that I could no longer concentrate fully on my work or take pleasure in the social life that my wife and I had been leading. Then too, as now, I gradually became convinced that Lothar was in England and wished to see me.

  My visions of him increased in clarity until I became familiar with the surroundings in which he was living. He had two rooms on the ground floor of a rather shoddy apartment house. It was number 94, in a long dreary street which I knew to be in North London somewhere beyond St. Pancras Station. The next development was my becoming aware of the way to find it on starting from the Station, and that Lothar was willing me to come there to meet him.

  I knew instinctively that no good could come from such a meeting; so for some days I resisted the urge to go there. But Lothar gave me no peace; and both Dinah and my fellow employees at the research station became greatly alarmed by my mental condition. They said that at times I talked as if I were a different person, and urged me to see a doctor.

  To have done so would have been futile. Medical science now accepts telepathy, but I doubt if any doctor would have believed my story and, even if he had, it would have been beyond his power to help me. The probability is that he would have had me put into a mental home, if only for a period of observation, and, as that could have brought me no relief, I were not prepared to submit to it.

  At length, towards the end of the month, on May 26, to be exact, I decided that, if I was not to lose my job owing to a complete breakdown, I must give way to Lothar's urging. So I took the day off and went up to London.

  From St. Pancras I had no difficulty in finding the street in which Lothar had his rooms, and it proved in all respects precisely the same as I had seen it in my visions. On going up the steps of No. 94, I saw that the front door was ajar. Walking in I entered the first room on the right. As I had felt certain he would be, he was sitting there and expecting me.

  To begin with, my fears that such a meeting would bring misfortune on myself were stilled, because he greeted me with great affection; and few people can exercise more charm than Lothar when he is in a mood to do so. I learned that he had periodically overlooked me and so had followed the outline of my career just as I had his. He had known of my marriage and that I had left the United States to settle in Britain, and was aware of the type of work that I was then employed upon; and he confirmed my belief that he had gone by way of South America to Germany, been captured by the Russians at Peenemünde and later reconciled himself to continuing his scientific research on rocket development under the Soviet Government.

  It was this, he admitted frankly, that had been his main reason for not having got into touch with me openly, as he had entered Britain by clandestine means and, to minimize the risk of being found out, left his lodging only when the mission he had come upon necessitated his doing so. His other reason was that, since we still resembled one another so closely, it would have been impossible for him to conceal the fact that he was my twin and, as I had no doubt told my wife that he had deserted the Allied cause during the war, for him to have turned up at Farnborough might have greatly embarrassed me.

  He produced a bottle of wine, and over it we talked for a long while about our youth in Chicago and our devotion to one another in those days, then of the lives we had made for ourselves in Russia and Britain respectively. From what he told me it was clear that upper-crust scientists fared far better there than here. We were then thirty-two years of age and he was already receiving an emolument in the form of excellent accommodation, transport, holiday, and priority goods vouchers which, added to his cash salary, enabled him to live at a standard that, with British taxation at its present level, I could never hope to equal.

  It was this which led me to make some remark to the effect that not only had the men in the Kremlin abandoned all attempts to make the Marxist ideology work in practice, but they were deliberately creating a new aristocracy with such cynical disregard for even a semblance of equality that Britain's Welfare State brought her much nearer to being a Communist society than the revolution had Russia.

  He entirely agreed, remarking that true Communism could never work in any country and, realizing that, although they could not openly admit it, the men in the Kremlin had, in fact, become Nazis. It was that which made him willing and happy to work for them.
He went on to say that he still believed the Hitler doctrines to be the only ones by which, in the modern world, the masses could be made to work the hours they should and be controlled effectively; that, by the application of those doctrines, power could be concentrated in a few hands in a way that was impossible in the democracies, and that power ultimately used to establish a world order - call it Communism or anything else one liked - ruled over by a single governing body.

  When that day came, he declared with complete self-confidence, he meant to be a member of it - and it would not be many years in coming. The Western Powers could not compete effectively in the armaments race because the expenditure of their governments was limited by the reluctance of the voters, to whom they had to go, cap in hand, to retain power, to provide sufficient money; and as each of them, again at the dictation of these masses, had to place the individual interests of their countries before those of maintaining a united front, capitalist-democracy was doomed. Innumerable jealousies and divergent policies inherited from the past could be made afresh into bones of contention and played up into serious national issues, which would keep them from ever combining wholeheartedly; so, one way and another, when Russia struck they would be incapable of mobilizing even a third of their potential strength against her.

  Power, he contended, was the only thing really worth having. And what could equal playing a part in decreeing the way of life to be followed by the whole human race when the new World State was established? He meant to do so, and out of his old affection for me he wished me to share his exalted station.

  It then transpired that the object of his visit, which was being kept secret even from all but one high official at the Soviet Embassy, was to take me back to Russia with him. He said that immediate employment could be arranged for me with a remuneration which would enable me to enjoy many luxuries that I could not afford here, and that if I wished it my wife could be brought over later to join me. But that was only the beginning of the programme. He was already well on the way up the ladder to political power and in due course would have a special use for me. What exactly that was, he would not specify; but it hinged upon the fact that, as identical twins, once I became fluent in Russian we could easily pass for one another.

  Even while he was still describing this, apparently, alluring prospect to me, I had made up my mind to refuse. Quite apart from the fact that I believe enslavement and the destruction of individuality, which is the policy of the Soviet Government, to be the most evil fate that could befall mankind, and that I am a loyal British subject with a deep sense of gratitude for the freedom and security I enjoy as a naturalized citizen of this country, I was not in the least tempted to accept temporary affluence as the price of the uncertainties of aiding him in his political career in Russia. Brilliant as I knew Lothar to be, there could be no guarantee that his ambitions would not bring him up against some, perhaps, less gifted but more powerful rival; then, as there were plenty of examples to show, it would need only one slip by him on some interpretation of Marxist doctrine for us both to land up in Siberia, or even find ourselves facing a firing squad.

  On my declining his proposal he tried sweet reason and, exerting all his charm and will-power, argued with me for over an hour. Then, finding that I still stood firm, his manner changed and he began to threaten me. He said that secret plans he had made for the furtherance of his ambitions could not be carried out unless he had a double to appear in his stead on certain important occasions and that, as I was the only person who could pass as himself without question, like it or not I had got to return to Russia with him.

  When I still refused he issued an ultimatum. He gave me three days in which to think it over and said that, if by the third day I did not come to him again prepared to do as he wished, he would give me no further chance but bring about my ruin.

  On that we parted and I returned to Farnborough. As can be imagined, I was greatly worried. It did not occur to me that, living in hiding as he was, he was capable of upsetting the well-ordered life I was leading, but I did fear that he would use the occult link between us to badger me and make me miserable. To my surprise the contrary proved the case and for a whole week I remained free from those mental invasions of my consciousness by him with which I had been afflicted from the beginning of the month.

  This lulled me into a false sense of security. I began to believe that his threats had been only idle ones, and that he had resigned himself to my refusal to go to Russia with him. I was to learn differently.

  I belonged to a group of scientists who met once a month for an informal dinner - for which, as a number of us came up from the country, we did not change - at the Connaught Rooms. A distinguished guest always addressed us on some subject of interest and there was a debate afterwards. Sometimes the debates were of such interest that a number of us congregated in the downstairs bar after the meeting had broken up to continue the discussion. If I joined the party in the bar, lingering there made it too late for me to catch the last train back to Farnborough; so I had formed the habit of taking up an overnight bag with me as I had found that I could always get a room at one or other of the small Bloomsbury hotels if need be. Governed, therefore, by my degree of interest in the subject discussed, and how I chanced to be feeling, I either stayed the night in town or got home soon after midnight.

  It so happened that a week after my meeting with Lothar, I attended one of these dinners, and stayed on afterwards talking to some of my friends. When I went to the cloakroom to get my night-bag the attendant declared that I had already collected it. In vain I produced my ticket and vowed that I had not. The attendant protested that I had said I had mislaid my ticket, and that on my giving my name, which was on a label attached to the bag, and signing a slip, the bag had been handed to me. She also produced another attendant to confirm that I was the gentleman to whom the bag had been given.

  Supposing that a professional thief had impersonated me, I registered a complaint and, as it was by then too late to catch the last train, after trying several hotels that were full I secured a room at one in which I had stayed only once before, and slept in my underclothes.

  Next morning, as was my custom on such occasions, on arriving back in Farnborough I went straight from the station to my office. At the midday break I went home for lunch. As I greeted Dinah I expected her to ask me how I had enjoyed my dinner in London. Instead, looking more radiant than I had seen her for a long time, she threw her arms round my neck and cried:

  'Darling, you ought to go to those dinners of yours more often if you always come home after them. I don't think we've had such a wonderful night since our honeymoon.'

  As she was holding me to her I was able to conceal my astonishment. Then, over her shoulder, I distinctly saw Lothar's face, and it was sneering at me. Instantly the explanation of what Dinah had said became clear. Lothar had impersonated me and slept with her the previous night.

  My distress and fury can be imagined; but realizing the shattering effect the truth would have on her, I felt that I must prevent her from getting the least suspicion that anything was wrong. Controlling my emotions with an effort, I told her how much I loved her and what a joy she was to me. Later, I found my night-bag in a cupboard in the hall. That was concrete evidence that Dinah had not dreamt my return, and I had no doubt that Lothar had gone to some trouble to collect it, so that he might use it as a sort of sign-manual that he really had been there and taken my place as Dinah's husband in our bed.

  One would have thought such an act, causing me the sick misery that it did, would have been enough to satisfy his resentment at my refusal to fall in with his plans; but it was not.

  Three weeks elapsed, during which I gradually became less troubled by thoughts of him and the criminal deception he had practised on Dinah; then one morning I received a solicitor's letter. It informed me that I was to be cited as co-respondent in an action for divorce.

  Knowing myself to be guiltless, I went up to London and demanded from the solicitors an ex
planation of the unjustified charge that had been brought against me. They gave it to me, chapter and verse.

  Soon after six o'clock in the evening of the day that I had attended the dinner, a Mr. Wilberforce had caught me in flagrante delicto with his wife in the bedroom of their flat in Bayswater. He had forced me to give him my name and address, and a woman who cleaned for them was prepared to give evidence that, not only had she let me into the flat that evening, but had also done so on two previous occasions. The fact, as I learned later, that Mrs. Wilberforce was a woman of dubious reputation, who frequented night-clubs, made no difference to the legal aspect of the matter. As I had arrived in London that evening at five o'clock and spent the best part of the next two hours watching a film that I had particularly wanted to see, I could produce no alibi.

  The only possible explanation was that Lothar, having read my mind and knowing my intentions, had impersonated me with this woman before going down to Farnborough, as a means of being further revenged upon me.

  Hardly able to contain myself for fury, I jumped into a taxi and drove straight to Lothar's rooms. This time the front door was shut. My ring was answered by a blowsy woman who gave me a surly nod and said:

  'Hello Mr. Vintrex, I'd begun to think you wasn't coming for that envelope you left with me. Hang on half-a-mo', and I'll go and get it for you.'

  It was obvious that she took me for Lothar, so I let her continue to think so, and she slouched off down into the basement. The moment she had disappeared I tried the door of the room in which I had seen him. It opened at my touch and I walked in on the off chance that I might find something there which would give me a clue to his whereabouts.